When Rebecca Skloot first heard about the HeLa cell line that would become the topic of her bestselling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks ten years later, little did she know that it would take her on a twisty journey through medical history and ethics, deep into the untold story of a black family from Clover, Virginia—and, now, to a film starring Oprah Winfrey.

ELLE.com presents a conversation between Skloot and Rose Byrne, who plays the author in the HBO adaptation, about Lacks' story and how it changed her life, the surprising similarities between acting and journalism, and turning a decade of discovery into just 90 minutes of film.

Rose Byrne: We filmed the movie and spent the a good deal of time there going through the screenplay bit by bit and I was incredibly lucky—Rebecca was really candid with me and shared stuff that is not in the book or screenplay, so I could have the context of her own history. I was very spoiled. When did this begin for you, this journey of Henrietta's story?

"This story is not about me, and I really didn't want to be in the book at all."

Rebecca Skloot: First of all, the character in the book is very intentionally one-dimensional—this story is not about me, and I really didn't want to be in the book at all. Then I eventually realized that being a journalist in the story was a part of the story, because many people had come [to the Lacks family] before me, wanting things, and it hadn't worked very well.

When you and I sat down together, we talked about what was going on in my life at that time and how to make what was a one-dimensional character in the book into a three-dimensional character in real life, especially what was going on in my life at the time when I learned about the cells. I was 16—my father got very sick and he didn't know what was wrong. He went from being my marathon-running and super healthy 40-year-old dad to just being completely incapacitated overnight. It turned out he had gotten a viral infection that caused some pretty serious brain damage. One of my jobs became driving him to the hospital a lot; he enrolled in a drug study, a clinical trial.

I was spending a lot of time in the hospital watching my father and others be used in research and wrestling with the hope that comes with that—watching him go through what was a pretty awful and painful experience. I would sit and do my homework there. One day, my teacher mentioned these amazing cells from the '50s and the amazing things that had come from them. And I was just like, Whoa. Who was [Henrietta Lacks], and did she have any kids, and what did they think about all of this?

Because I was a kid who was watching my dad go through something similar—although my dad gave consent, so it was a very different story—I think the character of Rebecca is someone who has wrestled with this question of the cost of research on research subjects, and how science benefits. How do you kind of navigate that line without hurting people? We talked about all of these things as just one sentence in the movie.

Kathryn Wirsing

But I'm curious—we locked ourselves in a hotel room for hours and went through a lot of the script, and one of the things we talked about was how to portray a journalist. The character of Rebecca sits and listens and writes things down—there aren't a ton of lines and action, but there is a lot happening in your brain. What did you do with that information while you were acting?

Byrne: Those kinds of details were brilliant. I was obsessed with what the props would look like. I spent a lot of time with the props department—What does the recorder look like? That's the wrong one. All these specific things were so fun. Then the way your brain works as a journalist, it's on many different things at the same time: setting the scene, observing the person, following the live questioning. It was great to get that perspective.

But when you're in the scene, you kind of have to throw it all away and just be in it. It became a question of doing too much or too little—that was really up to our director, George [Wolfe]. Sometimes he would be like, "You're writing way too much. You look crazy." Other times he would be like, "You're doing nothing." It was a technical balancing act.

"You're writing way too much. You look crazy."

Skloot: Which is actually what it's like to be a journalist. Sometimes you get absorbed in what's going on around you. You do have moments of, "Oh, I am supposed to be writing this down." So that coming in and out is actually pretty real.

Byrne: What did you feel like when you first walked into [the Lacks'] house, and you were a young naïve white woman—what was going on in your head?

Skloot: One of the things we talked about a lot in the script development process was: What is "Rebecca's" arc? Characters are supposed to have some sort of evolution and narrative arc, so we would talk a lot about my actual backstory. It changed everything about my life and it changed my understanding of race, but those changes were all in my brain. So at one point the script had me having a religious conversion, and I was like...no.

One of the challenges of this role is that I was 27 when it started and 38 when it ended, but you can't portray that in a 95-minute movie. How did you think about that as you were acting?

Kathryn Wirsing

Byrne: There is a sense of naiveté in the beginning. Then she's slowly being welcomed into this family and going on this unusual journey with Deborah [Lacks, Henrietta's daughter], who is like a tornado. The series of tests she put you through because of her history of being taken advantage of...that was a huge part of the journey. You can do things visually, with your hair and makeup and and becoming more sophisticated as she went on, and things like that—but it is such an awakening about so many things, like you said.

Skloot: When we talk about Rebecca the character, it really is this sort of other person. I do talk about her, but I also flip-flop, when we talk about the backstory and what was really going on—that was me. I remember George saying, "Oh, Rebecca would never say that," and I was like, Oh, that's right, it isn't actually me. As a journalist, recognizing there's this slightly fictionalized version of your story—that's a very strange thing. I am the one who asks the questions, and I am the one who writes about the other people. I am not usually on the other side of the microscope.

Byrne: Did it make you uncomfortable?

Skloot: No, it was really fascinating—like, this is what it feels like when I do this to people, because it really is a different perspective on my own story.

Byrne: I am never going to be "Rebecca," obviously, so it's more about capturing an essence of her.

Skloot: You and Oprah both played mellower people. I remember when Oprah heard the tapes of Deborah and I talking, one of the first things she said was: "I am not going to be able to do that voice." She talks really fast all the time, and Oprah is not that person at all. So she was really thinking about how to capture that energy and that person without trying to do that. Deborah is really like Oprah with the RPMs turned up, even in the movie. I remember one of the first days we talked, you were like, "Yeah...I am going to have to talk a lot faster." Deborah and I are both overwhelming when we get going.

Byrne: That was a really great way in—to get the cadence of Rebecca's voice and where it came from. I always love to get inspired by someone, so to have the real inspiration in front of me was so fantastic. I had my little mantra of how to do it. You were fastidious with your recordings and photos and notepads, so that was great. I do move at a much slower pace. I'm glacial, compared to you! But it is fun to do. That's why I do it.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks airs on HBO Saturday April 22 at 8 PM.

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